


Subtle Coercion

by MeredithBrody



Category: Designated Survivor (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post-Episode: s02e20 Bad Reception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 16:58:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14525154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeredithBrody/pseuds/MeredithBrody
Summary: Kendra talks to Lyor about her issues with Steven Flannery and how she feels about that night 10 years earlier. (Kendra/Lyor friendship)





	Subtle Coercion

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry, I'm sorry I swear the next chapter of Curtains Close is coming I've just been really lazy the last week. I'm hoping to post that tomorrow. As it is, enjoy this mess of words as a counterpoint to Emily's dismissiveness. (I don't think Emily was purposefully dismissing Kendra's feelings. They just aren't on the best terms and she clearly didn't know what to say)

Kendra hadn’t moved since Emily left the staff recreation area. She had just stared at the table and tried to work things through. The talk with Emily hadn’t really helped that much. Her gut told her that she was right to withdraw the offer and that she couldn’t ignore what she now knew about Steven Flannery. He wasn’t the man that Kendra had thought it was, he was a manipulator and that was wrong. It was trying to reconcile that with the fact he did so many good things that was twisting her stomach into knots. “So, you pulled the nomination?”

“If you’re here to brag or to tell me that I shouldn’t have vouched for him in the first place can you just not.” She said before he had a chance to say anything else. She looked away from the pile of books and fixed her eyes on the ceiling. If she kept staring up then she wouldn’t cry. She’d already done that once today and she didn’t feel like doing it again. “I don’t need that right now.”

“Actually I came to check that you were okay.” He dropped onto the chair that Emily had left too, but Kendra couldn’t bring herself to look at him. “Emily didn’t say anything other than that you pulled the nomination, but she said maybe I should check in on you.” Lyor had been able to see through her from day one. He’d know something happened and clearly wanted to make sure that she knew Emily hadn’t told him. Maybe he was the right one to talk to about this right now. They may have only known each other a few months, but he got her in a way very few people ever did.

Was that the problem? Was she too open with people who maybe didn’t deserve it? She tended to live with her heart on her sleeve, there was little she held back or hid away unless she had to, and sometimes she just expected everyone else to be the same way. “Am I naïve, Lyor?” She blurted out, it wasn’t how she’d planned on asking this question but it fell out. It was all she could do to force herself to look at him.

“What?” He seemed to have frozen for a moment just staring at her. Almost as though he didn’t quite understand the words that she was saying to him. The question had, at the very least, seemed to throw him for a loop. “I don’t… What?”

“I know that… I like to see the good in people and sometimes I let people walk all over me but… am I naïve?” She was self-aware, especially about this. Plenty of people had told her that no successful lawyer was as easy to read as she was. Well, she’d proven them wrong, hadn’t she. Now she was one of the most powerful and influential lawyers in the country. But, she could do all of that and still be naïve.

“Kendra, you’re not,” Lyor said after a few moments of considering it, and Kendra wondered what he was going to say. “You’re the… you’re the yin to my yang. When I’m focusing on the bad you’re looking for the good. We compliment each other that way.” She wouldn’t deny that they were the opposites in almost any situation. When they agreed you knew you had the right path. But she still didn’t feel like that told her what she needed to know.

“That doesn’t exactly answer my question, Lyor.” She replied and shook her head but also went to push herself up to a sitting position. It wasn’t going to help with the not crying, but maybe it would make her look like she was asking serious questions. Which she was. She wanted to know his thoughts.

“No, you’re not naïve. You’re an optimist, but you’re also a realist. The two aren’t contradictory and you balance them perfectly.” Lyor’s reassurance somehow managed to actually make her feel a little worse than she already felt. Clasping her hands in front of her she chose to study them, give her something else to focus on. “Ken, he’s an asshole if he could ever make you feel like less than you are. You’re amazing.”

“Right now I just feel like a fool.” Lyor didn’t know the full story and she wasn’t sure she could really get his opinion without him knowing. She’d already told Emily, it wasn’t going to hurt to tell Lyor too. She was far closer to him than she was to Emily right now, anyway. “I slept with him. Years ago when I was a junior associate and I told Emily it was consensual but… I don’t know. I saw him with interns today and all the things you dug up.” Seeing him with the interns, then when she’d gone to meet him… She hadn’t felt comfortable and it reminded her how she felt that first time. “Then when I went to meet him he bought me a drink I didn’t ask for and…”

“He tried again, right?” Lyor knew exactly what she was implying. She didn’t sleep with him. If circumstances were different she might have but by then she’d seen him in a new light. It was the drink that had made her decide that maybe he shouldn’t be put into a position of this much power. He was a good activist, he’d keep things going without this promotion, but she still felt a little guilty. Even if he had been more than a little pushy.

“Yeah. I’m older now, I saw through it and I said I had to get back here but…” She’d used her job as an escape. Was that going to be how she managed this now? When she was uncomfortable she run back here. It didn’t matter, what did matter is that she’d had to do it. “Suddenly I look back 10 years and I wonder… did I really choose it, or did I do it because that’s what he wanted? That he gave me alcohol and plied me with compliments and flattery… and he knew, he _knew_ that I wanted his approval.”

“Sounds like it’s something you may struggle with for a while but Ken… that’s okay.” Lyor was surprisingly calm and reassuring about this. Kendra wondered for a second what it was in his life that made him able to deal with this when she’d had to reassure him about a rocket ship he’d made when he was eight. “It isn’t your fault.”

“It feels like it is.” She was back to staring at her hands. Not wanting to admit that she should have known at the time. It was painful to realise how easy it was to be manipulated by someone, and you might never realise it. Never know that it wasn’t your choice all along, that you were coerced and it was so subtle you thought it was your idea all along.

“It’s not. You wouldn’t let any victim think that it was their fault, would you?” That was a fair question, and he was right. If she was dealing with any victim she’d tell them it wasn’t their fault. Even if she didn’t really feel like a victim, she definitely felt violated, and she needed to know that wasn’t her fault. “I know you’re hurt right now, and that you’ve seen the bad side of someone you thought you respected but that doesn’t say anything about you.”

“I just… hate feeling like this, you know?” She said eventually. Remembering that they’d had a conversation about power dynamics months earlier when Seth and Emily had first begun dating. They had agreed then no relationship between a subordinate and their superior could ever be neutral. She hadn’t even considered Steven then, but it counted, didn’t it? Even if he didn’t directly manipulate her, it still wasn’t even. Though the drinks and the flattery… She still had a lot to think about.

“I know. You’ll get through it, though. You’re no different than you were this morning, or yesterday, or the day before.” That was actually oddly freeing to hear. He was right. This didn’t change anything, maybe it just made her a little bit more aware. She was alright with that, and she could just push through it.

“Thanks, Lyor.” She replied, nodding as he stood up and headed for the door. She wasn’t originally going to say anything more but since he was right, and she was ready to forget about this horrible day she decided to take a chance. No point letting it change who she was, was there. “Hey, you free for dinner?”

“For you? Always.” He smiled and held out an arm for her to lead the way. Kendra may not know how she felt about the past, and that was something that she was going to have to work out in her own time and her own way. What she did know was that despite how she felt right now, she wasn’t going to let this change her. She had a good job and good friends and she knew her place in the world. The past was the past, and she could face it when she was ready.


End file.
